Following an inspiring encouragement about our Young Adults ministry, we delved into Leviticus! Leviticus can be ones of those books in the Old Testament that we easily skip past - especially when we want God to remind us of his comfort or to give us courage in challenging times. And yet, wherever you sense the Holy Spirit nudging you to go to in the Bible, there is so much to be gained by not disregarding the opportunity.
God speaks when we obey. Even just the first couple of chapters begin to reveal to us through God's law our need for Jesus and even back then, how His own walk here on earth was destined to be, and why, and what this now means for us as followers of Him.
Jesus is our grain offering. He was a seed that fell to earth to be harvested. The good of His wheat was set apart, he was crushed, his body was beaten, and he went through fire, only to be made whole as the 'bread of life'.
We too are called to walk this kind of walk as followers. To do so, it is essential to include those 'ingredients' of oil; the Holy Spirit, incense; our communication with God through prayer, and salt; the Truth. These are what should be offered to be put on God's altar. With this, we must never add 'yeast' and 'honey'.
These ingredients are designed to enhance and sweeten. When it comes to the salvation of Jesus and our walk with him, nothing needs to be added. Though they can be added later, so long as they are always offered back to God. Today, we are being commissioned to go out into the world. FC Southsea is 'good to go'.
But we must never forget the oil of the Holy Spirit. Just as the disciples were told to wait for the Holy Spirit before going out to make disciples. We must never forget the incense. The harvest is ripe but the labourers are few. Our job isn't too convince more people to join us on the field but to pray to the God of the harvest for more labourers. And we must never forget the salt.
We must do good yes, but the priority - the why - of this good, must come back to the Kingdom. Otherwise we lose the plot; we lose our saltiness. We are good to go, FC Southsea. What are we offering?
